Examiners' reports - June (PDF, 385KB) - OCR

OCR Report to Centres – June 2013
perspective and voice in novels, as well as construction through chapters, paragraphs and
sentences. While there were many candidates who discussed poetry in ways which showed
excellent understanding of language, imagery and form, there were also many examples of
candidates offering comment on decontextualised words and images, so that their contribution to
the meaning of the overall poem was absent. Even in the discussion of poetry, where features of
structure and form are often the most obvious, they were often ignored by candidates, most
clearly exemplified when quotations were rendered as prose. As poetry and prose are the
compulsory genres for this unit, it would be sensible for Centres to focus on teaching ways of
incorporating analysis of each, including structure and form, into arguments.
Marking and Annotation
Most Centres carry out their marking and internal moderation with assiduous care, making
careful and judicious assessments which are clearly explained in the summative comments and
moderation notes. Marginal comments are most successful when they are evaluative and the
best summative comments clearly balance the strengths and weaknesses of the responses in
arriving at a judgement. These tend to make it much easier for the Moderator to support the
Centre’s judgment. While commentary at the end of an essay is useful in showing the markers’
debate in deciding upon a particular mark, the cover sheet must be used to summarise the
rationale for the final mark. Markers should remember that the top mark in each band is only to
be awarded to work that fully meets all the criteria for that Band – this allows for greater
discrimination within the band to arrive at a ‘best-fit’ mark.
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